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Doing your own estate planning is not a good idea. There are a lot of mistakes people make when they try, and they usually don’t realize it. One example is what I call the “illiquid estate.” If you are an accountant, I apologize because I know you use the word illiquid in a more precise way, but I think you’ll understand my meaning. By an illiquid estate, I mean an estate plan where each major asset is designated to go to somebody in particular, and there is not enough left in the “residuary est...
Pat Howard, living with multiple sclerosis for decades, gets around in a powered wheelchair since she can no longer put any weight on her legs. Last summer, her daughter Cindy was driving her 74-year-old mom back from an adult day care facility 30 minutes from her Santa Clarita, California, home when the car overheated and broke down. “We were stuck,” Cindy recalled in a recent phone call. “I was freaked out about driving the overheated car and worried about our safety. Our only vehicle was now sitting by the side of the road.” They called for...
Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of articles Senior Voice will publish in coming months on various topics from the Diverse Elders Coalition. Each article will cover a different segment of the elder population. Despite their resilient nature, Hispanic older adults continue to face a plethora of challenges, which include retirement insecurity, lack of access to health care, housing and programs, as well as hunger and chronic disease. The National Hispanic Council on Aging (NHCOA) — the leading national organization working to imp...
I hope you’ve all had a great Thanksgiving and will have a wonderful Christmas and a very happy New Year. I have been under the weather, but I have met a wonderful group of friends, who are “dog people”. I had been wondering what I could do for my adorable, sweet Portia. She is an Italian Greyhound, all of 15 pounds and the sweetest, smartest dog (without having had any training) I have ever been around. She loves people, cats and dogs and not necessarily in that order. My newly found frien...
Last year prices for Medicare held fairly steady, and of course, there was zero increase in your Social Security check. This year, the cost-of-living raise is tiny, at .03 percent (about $3 if your monthly benefit is $1,000). In fact, Part B premiums rose more than the COLA. Here’s a summary of the figures that have been released so far. Part A premiums (hospital, nursing, hospice, home health) According to Medicare.gov, most people get Part A coverage free of cost. However if you buy it, the monthly cost in 2017 will be $413 per month (up from...
Editor’s note: This press statement was received Oct. 19, 2016. Today’s announcement of a 0.3 percent cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) is another major disappointment to the 60 million people who depend on Social Security, says The Senior Citizens League (TSCL.) “The consumer price index (CPI) that the government uses to determine the annual COLA is simply not doing the job of protecting the buying power of older and disabled Americans,” says Mary Johnson, TSCL’s Social Security policy analyst. Johnson says that the federal governmen...
The federal government is trying to stop nursing homes from forcing people into using private arbitration instead of lawsuits when people bring cases of elder abuse, wrongful death and sexual harassment. The private arbitration issue is actually much larger than just a problem for seniors. Over the last 10 years, thousands of businesses across the country – from big corporations to storefront shops – have used arbitration to create an alternate system of justice. You probably haven’t noticed or paid attention to the notices buried in writt...
This is the ideal time for all people on Medicare to consider whether they have the best prescription drug coverage available. Other times to enroll in Part D are when you are first eligible for Medicare and you join during your Initial Enrollment Period (the seven months around your birthday month) and during the Special Enrollment Period, such as if you’ve lost creditable prescription drug coverage from an employer or union, you’ve moved from your service area, you moved in or out or live in a long term care facility. Here is a chart of Ala...
I hope you are getting this before November 8, the date you must vote in order to exercise your privilege and duty as a citizen to choose a new president to govern our country for the next four or eight years. And I hope you have chosen wisely, especially seniors, who will be dependent on Social Security and Medicare for the rest of your lives. If all things were right in this world, we would not be depending on profit making insurance and pharmaceutical companies but we would all be safely...
Suns, skies, clouds and flowers of June together cannot rival for one hour, October’s bright blue Alaska weather. – H H Jackson. If you think your prescribed meds are getting more expensive each time you get another order in, you are absolutely right. Just a couple of questions to my friends: Wouldn’t the world be a far better place if there were no insurance companies? Why do the people on Medicare Part D have to buy into an insurance company? When I saw my doctor last week, he told me his e...
The open enrollment period for 2017 Medicare prescription drug plans is Oct. 15-Dec. 7. Plans change and people’s needs change, so it’s a good idea to review your options every year. A new plan may just save you money. You can read about them before Oct. 15 to be ready. To get more information, visit www.medicare.gov/part-d and click the button at left “Find health and drug plans”, or go to www.medicare.alaska.gov. As always, the staff at Alaska’s Medicare Information Office and their statewide volunteer network are primed to help you. June...
The Medicare Information Office has new materials in other languages. Contact office staff if you’d like rack card size brochures in English, Tagalog or Korean, or you can print out a flier on Extra Help, a prescription financial assistance program, off the office’s website. From medicare.alaska.gov, go to the ‘Publications & other resources’ link on the left side of the page, http://dhss.alaska.gov/dsds/Pages/medicare/medipublications.aspx....
You have decided you need a change of scenery and want to explore our wonderful country. You pull out the Rand McNally (I am aware I have just dated myself) and pick a section of the country on your bucket list. Then, reality strikes. You have VA medical appointments, meds about to run out and a lab test scheduled. Your next logical step would be to wait until all of those little situations are sorted before leaving. I have a news flash: There will always be some little appointment, event or...
Rep. Diane Black, a Tennessee Republican congresswoman, and Earl Blumenauer, a Democratic congressman from Oregon, don’t agree on very much about health care. Both sit on the powerful House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee and both tend to vote on the opposite side of most health care issues. Black, a nurse by training, has called President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act an “abject failure,” which she argues was “built on a grand deception.” Black’s dislike of liberal health care policies is well known. She’s best known on Capitol Hill...
September Morn, please stay for a while longer, for when you are gone it will be time for an introduction to snowflakes and a lonesome, cold winter. But for readers lucky enough to have a working fireplace, it will be nice to cozy up to it again. Please remember to get registered to vote, and I can’t stress enough the importance of voting this year. The next president will be selecting one or maybe two Supreme Court justices. Social Security Disability benefits Social Security pays disability b...
If someone is enrolled in a health plan (this can be a Marketplace plan through the Affordable Care Act, a private health insurance plan or an employer plan), when they become eligible for Medicare at 65 the plan they were in can seamlessly enroll them into one of their Medicare Advantage plans, if they have one. (A Medicare Advantage plan is one policy that covers Medicare Hospital Coverage A, Outpatient Medical Coverage B and Prescription Coverage D and sometimes vision or dental). Some people have health plans that have approval to...
Numerous Tricare fee change proposals in the FY 2017 Dept. of Defense budget are galloping our way. If you are like me, one of the elite group that in the 1960s received an invitation from the local draft board to join the Army, these new changes aren’t anything like the deal the military said our retirement benefits would be. We all realize we all have to do our part in tough budget times. I can’t speak for all retirees, but I wish the hit squad at the DOD would pack up and move to another dep...
Do not go back to what you loved in August, for you will see the near ending of the times you loved. August is the beginning of the end of the year, the times when the lush green leaves start turning to rust and yellow. But if you are a happy outdoorsman and can’t wait to see the first snowdrop, you will be coming into your own, waxing your skis, sharpening your skate blades. Taking your heavy wool sweaters out of mothballs and checking to see where you left your snow shovels. I am not one of t...
Have you reached the donut hole in Medicare coverage? If so then you know, it begins when you and your drug plan have spent a total of $3,310 on your medications. Then, you have to pay a higher share of medication costs till you reach the other side of the donut hole. Ouch. If you haven’t yet reached that point, there are ways Medicare advises people to slow their descent into the donut hole by keeping overall costs lower. • Ask your doctor to prescribe generic drugs if they are appropriate in your situation. • Find out if your local pharm...
July and Independence Day is here. That may be good for some, but for others it is a sentence for loneliness. If you think that living into your near-nineties is always a blessing, I am here to tell you that for many it is not. Your contemporaries are no longer around – they’ve either just moved away or are deceased. You can no longer drive your car and have lost your independence and your eyesight is failing. You likely have no close relatives who live nearby and are willing and able to giv...
April 15 is long gone, but that doesn’t mean tax worries are over, thanks to fraudulent phone callers posing as IRS agents. Better Business Bureau, the Alaska Medicare Information Office and others are reporting a surge in the calls, in which the caller claims to be from the Internal Revenue Service. “Reportedly, the tax scammers are pretending to be case workers from the IRS telling people there is a warrant out for their arrest,” Alaska Commission on Aging Executive Director Denise Daniello warns in a May 16 alert. “The scammers are targeti...
Normally, in a presidential election year, Congress doesn’t get much done. This year is no exception. But with a few months before July’s political nominating conventions, a brief window of productivity exists and some lawmakers are pushing bipartisan proposals to help change Congress’ gridlock image. Let’s look at what’s on the agenda (with the exception of the seemingly never-ending attitudes and activities surrounding Obamacare) over the next couple of months before politics overwhelms all congressional activity. Congress left town for...
What is more wonderful than a gloriously 70 degree temperature on an innocent day in June, especially when I am writing this on May 15 in Anchorage, Alaska? For those of you who do not believe in climate change, I feel sorry for you. I have been living in Alaska for 48 years and I have never seen a springtime like the one we are now having here. It is not so good for the fishermen and the rest of the people who live on the northwest coasts of our largest state, because they are losing land to...
The Alaska legislature is no longer pushing to remove the mandate for the Senior and Disabled Property Tax Exemption, which exempts Alaskan seniors and disabled veterans from having to pay property taxes on the first $150,000 of the assessed value of their home. Although many municipalities protest the program as an expensive, unfunded mandate and have lobbied for its removal, the proposal floated during this session to make it optional, rather than mandatory as it is now, received too much pushback and has been abandoned for now, according to...
Editor’s Note: This press statement was received on April 21, 2016. The Gerontological Society of America (GSA) — the nation’s largest interdisciplinary organization devoted to the field of aging — is congratulating both President Barack Obama and the U.S. Congress for reauthorizing the Older Americans Act (OAA), a vital piece of legislation that supports programs and services for approximately 11 million individuals and their families. GSA is also calling for Congress to fund, at a minimum, OAA programs at their authorized levels for Fiscal...
